Miguel Cervantes Saavedra

Miguel de Cervantes was born in Madrid in 1547 and died in the same city in 1616. He is considered the foremost "novelist" of modern times, often referred to as the father of the novel. He had a military career and fought in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), where he was injured, resulting in a disability in his left hand, which led him to "glorify the other hand," as he himself said. In 1575, Cervantes was captured by Turkish pirates and sold as a slave in Algiers. Upon returning to Spain, he lived a life marked by poverty and imprisonment. His most significant work, "Don Quixote," written between 1605 and 1615, is one of the most important novels and a milestone in world literature. Other works include "La Galatea" (1585), "Exemplary Novels" (1613), the poem "The Journey to Parnassus," among others.